An autonomous vehicle is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating with minimal or no human input. In particular, an autonomous vehicle can observe its surrounding environment using a variety of sensors and can attempt to comprehend the environment by performing various processing techniques on sensor data collected by the sensors. Given knowledge of its surrounding environment, the autonomous vehicle can identify an appropriate motion path through such surrounding environment.
Thus, a key objective associated with an autonomous vehicle is the ability to perceive the location of objects that are proximate to the autonomous vehicle and/or determine other information about the autonomous vehicle and its relationship to the surrounding environment. One aspect such an objective is the collection of sensor data by the variety of sensors included in or otherwise coupled to the vehicle.
However, autonomous vehicle sensors can suffer from the presence of precipitation, debris, contaminants, or environmental objects which interfere with the ability of the sensor to collect the sensor data. As one example, rain, snow, frost, or other weather-related conditions can degrade the quality of the sensor data collected by a given sensor when present. For example, raindrops, snow, or other condensation can collect on the lens or other components of a sensor (e.g., a camera or a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensor), thereby degrading the quality of the sensor data collected by the sensor. As another example, dirt, dust, road salt, organic matter (e.g., “bug splatter,” pollen, bird droppings, etc.), or other contaminants can accumulate on or adhere to a given sensor (e.g., on the sensor cover, housing, or other external component of the sensor), thereby degrading the quality of the sensor data collected by the sensor.